Aquarium shop owner fined for importing invasive snakehead fish

A Toronto-area aquarium shop owner has been fined $5,000 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth Schroeder Jr. and ordered to make $3,000 restitution for bringing an illegal species of predatory and highly invasive fish across the border from Canada, U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul announced Tuesday.

Jim Ip, also known as Muk Leung Ip, 50, of Scarborough, Ont., admitted shipping 26 illegal giant snakehead fish from Ontario to an undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent in Amherst on July 12, 2011. He also admitted selling 154 giant snakeheads to the agent last Dec. 4.